By Fred Hobson (NHC Fellow, 1991–92) Ever in control, H. L. Mencken contrived that future generations would see his life as he desired them to. He even wrote Happy Days, Newspaper Days, and other books to fit the pictures he wanted: first, the carefree Baltimore boy; then, the delighted, exuberant critic of American life. But he … Continued
Edited by Jeff Love (NHC Fellow, 2014–15) and Jeffrey Metzger After more than a century, the urgency with which the writing of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche speaks to us is undiminished. Nietzsche explicitly acknowledged Dostoevsky’s relevance to his work, noting its affinities as well as its points of opposition. Both of them are credited … Continued
By Christopher Gill (NHC Fellow, 1981–82) This is a major study of conceptions of selfhood and personality in Homer, Greek tragedy, and philosophy. The focus is on norms of personality in Greek psychology and ethics. The key thesis is that, to understand Greek thinking of this type, we need to counteract the subjective and individualistic … Continued
Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (NHC Fellow, 1988–90) A unique and comprehensive collection of 26 literary essays that provides real evidence of the rich cultural history of black women in America. Black women's writing has finally emerged as one of the most dynamic fields of American literature. Here, leading literary critics–both male and female, black … Continued
By Fred Kaplan (NHC Fellow, 1985–86) An absorbing study of the evolution of sentiment in Victorian life and literature What is sentimentality, and where did it come from? For acclaimed scholar and biographer Fred Kaplan, the seeds were planted by the British moral philosophers of the eighteenth century. The Victorians gained from them a theory … Continued
By Kejia Yuan (NHC Fellow, 1981–82)
By M. C. Bradbrook (NHC Fellow, 1978–79; 1980–81)
By Robert R. Edwards (NHC Fellow, 1985–86)
By Lawrence P. Jackson (NHC Fellow, 2004–05) The Indignant Generation is the first narrative history of the neglected but essential period of African American literature between the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights era. The years between these two indispensable epochs saw the communal rise of Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and … Continued
By Eric G. Wilson (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) The Melancholy Android is a psychological study of the impulses behind the creation of androids. Exploring three imaginative figures—the mummy, the golem, and the automaton—and their appearances in myth, religion, literature, and film, Eric G. Wilson tracks the development of android-building and examines the lure of artificial doubles untroubled … Continued